Soul Asylum: “There’s a big part of the punk rock thing that is being an underdog…I identify with that.”

When Dave Pirner was growing up, the future Soul Asylum frontman discovered a passion for Drag Racing. Inspired by the never-say-die attitude of female driver Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney, little did the frontman know that, over four decades later, her attitude and determination would form the inspiration behind his band’s new album Slowly But Shirley.

Inspired by her drive and determination, even when faced with the challenges that came with being a female in a predominantly male sport, the young Pirner took this on board and, having experienced the highs and lows in his own chosen career, turned to Muldowney when writing the American alt-rock stars latest album.

In our latest Cover Story, V13 sat down with the frontman to talk about what he found so inspirational about Muldowney, his own career, and the challenges of being catapulted from an indie rock band to playing at the White House almost overnight…

First of all, 13 albums is a great achievement. As a songwriter, how does it feel talking, uh, being at that stage in your career?

“It feels pretty good. A lot of tunes. A lot of material. A lot of things I can play and do. I’ve written a lot of songs so I might as well keep them as long as someone wants to hear them…”

When you started the band did you have an ambition or was it the same back then… did you just enjoy writing songs?

“We didn’t have any ambitions to do anything in particular. We just wanted to be a band. I don’t think anyone was making any plans at all. It’s just kind of a survival game, most of it.”

The new record then… The artwork and the title of the album pays homage to a childhood hero of yours, Shirley “Cha Cha” Muldowney. How did that theme manifest itself into the record?

“I really liked dragsters when I was a kid and just that there was a woman that was willing to take on the old boys and all that. She’s a real hero to me. I saw placard that said ‘Slowly, but surely S U R E L Y,’ and I thought it’d be funny if it was Surely Temple then I was like, ‘Surely Muldowney.’”

“I don’t think anyone was making any plans at all. It’s just kind of a survival game, most of it.”

What got you interested in drag racing as a child?

“I think a lot of it just that I loved the design of the cars and I was always into hot wheels and matchbox cars. I’m not a car guy though. I’ve never owned a car or anything like that. The first time I saw a dragster, I just thought it was the most bizarre-looking vehicle I’d ever seen. It still seems like a crazy sport to me.”

You spoke to Shirley about the whole idea you had for the record. What kind of prompted you to do that?

“I just wanted to use her like this and her image and she was cool enough to say that it’s fine that we can use pictures and use her likeness. She was very forthcoming. I didn’t even know we would be able to get hold of her. That was a great relief when it all came together and actually worked because you never know what you’re going to get in a situation like that.”

What qualities about her resonated with you?

“She’s a woman taking on a man’s world like that is pretty bold. She had a lot of struggles along the way just proving that women can do all the things that men can do. I think it’s timely as we’ve got a woman running for president.”

V13 Cover Story – Issue 70 – Soul Asylum

Did you take any of those qualities into your music career when you were approaching, but what is quite a difficult industry?

“I think there’s a big part of the punk rock thing that is being an underdog and it is being marginalized and it is having people tell you that you can’t do that. I identify with that.”

On the record you recorded a longtime fan favourite in “Freak Accident.” Do you think it fits in with the theme of the record?

“I think we just never really had a place for it. As we were picking songs, I gave Steve Jordan something like 40+ songs to listen to and try to sort through. I think we were on a conference call or something and he said, ‘What’s the fan favorite?’ and everybody said, ‘Freak Accident.’ so it became the obvious choice because we’d never put it on a record.”

The song talks about making mistakes and your own experiences. You’ve been doing this for Four decades now and longer. What has been the most important lesson you’ve learned?”

“Stay in school! I suppose the lesson is that if you believe in something and you love something and you want to do something, regardless of what anybody can tell you, that it is possible, you know? Lo and behold, I certainly didn’t think I’d be sitting here at this point.”

It’s been an incredible career with a lot of highs and lows throughout which you’ve also” been songwriting. What drives you to keep doing it? Do you still have a passion to do it as strong as you did when you first started?

“Yeah. It’s just a different kind of a thing. Do something long enough and it becomes who you are and it gives you your purpose. It’s just what I do, you know?”

“There’s a big part of the punk rock thing that is being an underdog and it is being marginalized and it is having people tell you that you can’t do that. I identify with that.”

Going back to Shirley and the similarities with the punk rock attitude and of being marginalized. In terms of musicians at that time, who were you inspired by?

“I started out on the trumpet in third grade, so I was really into trying to understand how music works. It didn’t really come from any kind of thinking ‘I like this kind of music,’ or ‘I like that kind of music.’ I just liked music and I wanted to be involved with it as much as I can. I want to be a part of it. I tried every single way of doing it. Taking lessons. I was in a youth orchestra. I did all that stuff. I think it dawned on me one day that reading music and playing by the classically trained playbook was actually what was holding me back because I wasn’t really that great at it. I wasn’t good at the discipline.

I wasn’t good at it… trying to be the trumpet player that could hit the highest note or whatever. None of it made any sense to me until I quit the whole traditional way of doing it and just started listening. I became a different kind of a trumpet player. One who listens instead of reads music. That coincided with the whole punk rock thing. I heard the Ramones and I was like, ‘Ah, this makes a lot of sense to me.’ I could manage my way through that and have an ethic about it, where you’re just passing on something that is very simple instead of trying to be a virtuoso at something. It’s something that speaks to the heart and not necessarily to the technicality of how many notes you can play at once or anything like that.”

Is that an ethic you’ve kind of tried to maintain throughout your career?

“Yeah. I never thought it was going to be easy and it isn’t, it’s a huge pain in the ass most of the time. But, you know, it beats digging a hole.”

From being an indie band, you then went through quite a lot of success when you had a double-platinum selling album. What do you remember about that transition from going from an indie artist to doing things like playing for President Clinton?

“I remember being blindly busy. If you’re playing in a band and you’re busy, that’s the best you can be, otherwise you’re not doing anything. There’s never any time to stand up and go, ‘Oh. Wow. I just played at the White House.’ It was like, something else tomorrow, blah, blah, blah. Everything’s just all happening, it snowballs… Just keeping up with it and playing music was enough. Also, you don’t really get to pick and choose where you play in any situation. But, it’s all just part of whatever it is that I’m doing. It’s not predictable and it’s not something that is for everyone.”

Recently the death of Liam Payne highlighted again the issue of coping with fame at a young age in the music industry. How did you cope with that almost instant rise in fame?

“I don’t know much about the kid but how well did I cope with it? I don’t know that either. There are unpleasant surprises and every now and then there’s something that goes right. You’re like, ‘Okay. I went through these four horrible experiences to have this one good experience.’ That’s about what it amounts to.”

The music industry is a very different industry now to when I first got involved and when you first started dipping your toes in it. Do you think enough is done to support young artists these days regarding like fame and mental health and coping?

“To me, it feels like it just becomes more and more what it’s always been. At some point or another, the outsiders are going to get pushed out. That’s the way the music industry and the way entertainment works and nobody cares. It’s not for the faint of heart.”

Soul Asylum has been a band now for four decade. You’ve written a book, you do acoustic tours, and there is allsorts of things outside the album/tour cycle. Have you got anything else in the pipeline?

“Well, you put out a record and then you have got to tour it for as long as people want to hear it. Then you’d go and start making another record. It’s fun right now to be coming out and playing a whole bunch of new songs for people and getting a pretty honest reaction as they’re hearing something for the first time. They don’t hate it so that’s good.

For this record, we’re going to places which we have never played before like Prague. The person who made the Grave Dancers Union cover is from Prague so that’s pretty cool. When you start a band you just want to get out of your hometown and go to see the world. I didn’t have any other way of doing that so I figured how about trying it this way? I don’t like travelling, but like we said earlier, it’s a lot better than digging a hole for a living…”